Monday, January 15, 2018

I Never Trust My Feelings/ I Waited for the Remedy

On Saturday I was in a bad mood because the snowstorm cancelled my trip to Phoenix. So Aaron, Naomi and I were on our way to Easton to return some Christmas presents when I turned on Sufjan Stevens, the obvious choice for this most solemn of moments. After a few songs of me thoughtfully going "mmm" and "oh wow" to several of the lyrics while staring thoughtfully into the middle distance, ("Should I tear my eyes out now/ before I see too much?") Aaron suddenly said (with his I'm-In-Charge-Here voice) "ok we're turning this off" and switched to his own playlist. Sufjan can take a good mood and make it bad, so bad moods pretty much go full Requiem-For-a-Dream when he's on. In my (correct) opinion.

Most of the time I have no idea what he's talking about, and it's just the melody and instruments that make me want to curl into a ball. An example: The very first episode of "This is Us" opens on a Sufjan song and - this is not an exaggeration - I literally decided then and there that I would never watch that show. I know what they're up to. It's just emotional manipulation! I don't need that in my life! Anyway - I don't really pay that much attention to his lyrics. But sometimes I catch little things and, to make myself feel better for him, I imagine that he's being so .... incredibly .... pain-stakingly ... self-reflective and pedantic. Like that whatever he's imagining, or whatever terrible meaning he's infusing into his little rememberances are ludicrous.  "Lemon yogurt/remember I pulled at your shirt?/I dropped the ashtray on the floor..." like, I imagine someone who remembers this scene in his childhood hearing this song and being like "STFU Sufjan, wasn't that just the time we went to Grandma's house to get some fruit roll-ups and play Mario? Damn dude."

There's a point to  this - it's that I think I might do that, and it has taught me a really good lesson. I really shouldn't trust most of my emotions. I respect them, of course. If Sufjan makes me go fetal I can express that freely and let myself get it out, and then probably get a treat later because life is hard and I deserve it. But I'm also getting better (I hope) at not making decisions in that fetal position. That's what I'm trying to say.

I haven't been good at that in the past. You can imagine all the crash diets I've decided to go on in those millions of 10-second intervals during which I've stood on a scale, or the number of times I've read a terrible story in the news and vowed never to leave the house again with Naomi, ever. These are not good decisions.

I never trust my feelings, the old Stevens bard says (then why you keep writing about them, bub?)

And here's the feeling I've been having the most lately: I'm doing this wrong, probably.

"This" being not necessarily Life in General, although yes, sometimes that. But for the purposes of this entry "this" means "being Naomi's Mom," and I've been told by more seasoned mothers that this is pretty much a hallmark of parenting forevermore, but I'm plagued by guilt on a very regular basis.

Now that Naomi is more self-aware, she is becoming more and more interactive. She makes pretend things in her pretend kitchen and tells me about them with pretend words. She points to squirrels out the window and brings me books for me to read to her while she backs up, dump-truck style, into my lap (this is one of my favorite visions of all time.) So I find myself asking, after reading the exact same if-you're-happy-and-you-know-it book 500 times in the same day - how many hours should I spend doing this? Should she play on her own? Can I read my book on the couch while she's sitting here? I know the answer to this is yes, and I do, but while I'm doing it I swear it feels exactly like if we had company over and I just sat there like an asshole with my nose in a book in front of them. Am I the Entertainment?

This existential crisis centers on one really, really wayward belief I'm starting to realize I have: that I'm responsible for bringing Naomi here. My thought proof goes like this:

1. I brought her here.
2. She did not ask to be brought here.
3. Sometimes "here" can be really painful.
4. If she experiences that pain, it's my fault (because 1 and 2.)
5. Therefore, If 1-4, than I should make her as happy and comfortable as possible.

I know how this goes. I know she needs to be independent, and that it's an incredibly useful and important tool for life for her to work out how to be content and imaginative on her own. I know that constantly entertaining her is neither feasible nor good for her. But what I need to know (this is an "I believe, help my unbelief! situation) is that I didn't bring her here. I didn't do anything to deserve her, and I didn't choose her. God gave her to me. This is a hard thing, because the physical, emotional and mental process of bringing her here was so painful and exhausting, and I'd like to take some credit for that (and I do. Some.) But in the broad sense, I really didn't bring her here.

But the rub: if I accept that, that means she's not mine really, and THAT i just won't accept.

I accept, help my... unacceptedness? Unaccceptability?

Peace, friends. If you're happy and you know it, clap your damn hands.